New Philosophy

Feminist Philosophy

What further problems of inclusion did second wave feminists face?

The problem of not having addressed racism was compounded by neglect of social class inequalities in the second wave. Furthermore, while the goals of Western feminists appeared to be androgynous equality with men, women in the Third World were constructing feminisms based on their traditional roles as wives and mothers in times of political upheaval. Some of these projects are discussed in Decentering the Center: Philosophy for a Multicultural, Postcolonial and Feminist World (2000), edited by Uma Narayan and Sandra Harding, and Haleh Afshared’s Women and Politics in the Third World (1996). The way in which poor American women have been left out of the abortion debates is treated by Laurie Shrage in Abortion and Social Responsibility: Depolarizing the Debate (2003).